Menu
  • News
  • About and Contact
    • About
    • Contact
    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • Email updates
    • RSS feed
    • Voices from our Research
  • Events
    • Upcoming
    • Past Events (since 2015)
    • Trade for Change Workshops
    • Film screenings
    • Facebook events
  • Writing and Media
    • Writing
    • Book
    • Media
    • What Moves Us

Voices

The following represent a random sampling of voices from those activists and organizers who participated in our research project. To see more, refresh this page.  Use the tag cloud to the right to navigate by theme.

Crisis and collective action

I10

I feel like there's going to be some sort of big shift, something's going to happen, maybe all the ice is going to melt in the Arctic and its going to finally make people, I hope, wake up. I think that it's sad that this is the way it is but I feel like people won't unite as a whole until something cataclysmic happens. I feel like that might be the kick in the pants our species needs.

Pulling up oppression by the roots

I29

...removing patriarchy and sexism...would create such a ripple effect that there would be so much more potential. I think that a lot of what goes on that is negative can be traced to those roots.

Capitalism, motivation, and social reproduction

I11

I think it's really foolish to think that if the competition of capitalism was taken away or if the goal of money were taken away that people wouldn't do things…[that] people would just sit around. No, people will maintain roads if they’re important roads, and maintain the public systems that they use or whatever, or grow food, but we won't do things like build $6 000 000 passing lanes in spots we don't need them...

The state and class rule

I22

The Canadian state itself is an instrument of class rule, and the Canadian state itself...has been deployed...against workers, against progressive peopl[e], against the First Nations, against minorities….The Canadian state[‘s]...foundations are colonial, we only have to talk about what happened to the First Nations, we only have to talk about what happened to Louis Riel.

Imperfect victories

I19

I was recently watching a video of people trying to block a deportation at an airport and I think that's a win…..We’re actually physically going to try and block you from deporting this person so that you actually cannot. I think that's a win and more of a win than a policy concession....The problem is that those kinds of wins are always so finite in time and they're not perfect, right? They're by no means perfect in that maybe not every form of domination is rejected in that moment but some form of it is and I think that's fairly rare.

Radical fetishes

I5

I think systemic mass movements are absolutely a priority if we want to change the world. I think political party activism, in the way that it exists in places like the global North, but I'd say also in the global South in many places, is a red herring that should be avoided. But I'd also say that about supposed forms of radicalism like primitivism, like deep ecology to a certain degree, like the idea that there's certain forms of radicality that are fetishes in and of themselves. Insurrectionists would do well, I think, to look back to the history of anarchism's propaganda of the deed which was very brief, and short lived, and bloody, and totally ineffective. You want to create an insurrectionary movement? Build a base and defend communities and move from there but you're not going to create revolution by throwing a firebomb.

Winning

I1

At a base level, winning would mean workers control the means of production and community control of resources around us. I think it would be breaking down and getting rid of sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia and other issues. Winning would mean ensuring that there's no one who's living in poverty at all. Winning would mean that kids have opportunities, that beginning at an early age whether it's early childhood education or making sure they've got food. Winning would mean a sense of communities being able to come together and make decisions that are relevant to their lives and have those decision-making processes matter in a way that they don't today. Winning would mean an entire transformation of society.

No going back

I27

I always think it's really exciting when people...move...and I think that the key thing…[is] not necessarily to take them and show them exactly what to do, but [to show them] there's no going back. They're either going to win or they're going to fucking lose and I think that's an important position. To push people out to taking those risks that they wouldn't normally want to take and getting them to feel like that's their decision, feeling empowered, and then creating that contrast, and then there's no going back, you're pretty much taking a leap.

Turning the tide

I20

I guess what I keep hoping is that the people who are using the skills of working together, of growing food, making things, of connecting with people despite barriers and differences, that when there is an inevitable big shift in this particularly unsustainable political and economical world we live in...there will be enough of these to...turn the tide.

Whiteness and the limits to movements

I19

[What are the] conversations that need to be had? Well...there's the race conversation. Not that that conversation doesn't happen but I don't think it happens in a way that ever gets anywhere near to addressing the issue. It kind of happens in this...massaging white guilt kind of way - we're talking about it...but it never actually gets addressed at all. I think that's a major issue locally….I think there's the whiteness of our movements and then there's racism in Halifax and where the activist community fits in to addressing that. I think that's a conversation that needs to be had that isn't because I think it very much limits what groups can do and what organizing can accomplish in the city...

Share this:

  • Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Available now!

What Moves Us: The Lives and Times of the Radical Imagination

Themes

WordPress database error: [You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MariaDB server version for the right syntax to use near '-testimonial-category ON posts.ID = tr_easy-testimonial-category.object_ID I...' at line 3]
SELECT DISTINCT tt2.term_id AS tag_id FROM wp_posts as posts INNER JOIN wp_term_relationships as tr2 ON posts.ID = tr2.object_ID INNER JOIN wp_term_taxonomy as tt2 ON tr2.term_taxonomy_id = tt2.term_taxonomy_id INNER JOIN wp_term_relationships as tr_easy-testimonial-category ON posts.ID = tr_easy-testimonial-category.object_ID INNER JOIN wp_term_taxonomy as tt_easy-testimonial-category ON tr_easy-testimonial-category.term_taxonomy_id = tt_easy-testimonial-category.term_taxonomy_id WHERE posts.post_status = 'publish' AND tt2.taxonomy = 'easy-testimonial-category' AND tt_easy-testimonial-category.taxonomy = 'easy-testimonial-category' AND tt_easy-testimonial-category.term_id IN (129,174,278,163,40,192,169,289,286,88,109,134,184,288,157,279,187,6,173,200,249,209,229,159,178,101,72,183,25,287,198,180,281,156,108,280,179,196,190,176,275,199,244,197,298,285,170,277,228,276,283,162,64,185,194,189,217,274,61,293,202,301,158,290,297,111,291,195,63,69,207,182,292,295,299,8,188,284,24,296,302,193,201,191,177,282,300,172,140,294)

class communication poverty technology capitalism identity security state hope women youth wealth unions success oppressions housing movements protest solidarity family prisons police burnout memory isolation cooperatives radicalism repression anger history leadership crisis alienation control equity anarchism fear activism privilege outreach reproduction corporations education reform struggle patriarchy marginalization revolution people of colour resistance intersectionality resources black bloc sectarianism power imagination colonialism tactics institutions Canada democracy Indigenous Communism labour movement economics barriers winning Industrial society relationships immigration work violence strategy the state political parties money climate insecurity food ecology electoral politics community Zapatistas alter-globalization ideology organizing alternatives futures collapse failure globalization

Follow Us!

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on TwitterFollow Us on SoundcloudFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on Subscribe for email updates

Radical Imagination

Copyright 2026


I am one theme by SKTThemes.

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.